What Caribbean registries could learn from Panama

Many think that the Caribbean is just the group of independent islands that used to be British Colonies and part of the British Commonwealth, where English is spoken and the British Shipping Act is enforced. However, there are more countries which also are part of the Caribbean, they are independent but they were Spanish or French or Dutch. In fact, some are still part of France and The Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Not all of their ship registries are the same. After studying the most important registries in the region, we find that there are mainly four types: The Red Ensign Group (see panel), the full national registries where the government runs the registry; private registries where the management is given to a commercial entity, and the semi-private regime, where there is a mixture of government and private management with local/national presence and sometimes the employees are designated by the government to be employed by the private company.

Most of the Caribbean registries have their own specialities and tend to attract similar types of vessels like cruise ships in The Bahamas registry, or yachts in the BVI and Cayman Islands, etc.

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